CAFE and Daily 5

I will be adding things periodically to this page that are part of my structure for CAFE and the FAB FIVE (Daily 5). Hopefully it will be an easy reference for you instead of searching through posts. :)

This is a link to Mrs. Snethen’s site. Scroll down and you will see “Cafe Cards”. WOW! They go with the CAFE menu and would be great to give out as you teach mini-lessons for the kids to put in their reading notebooks!

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Are you planning on teaching the lessons on the floor? I think it would be great, but am a little nervous about what my sixth graders will think. Also, for your daily grammar activities do you plan on spending the first few weeks teacher the different parts of speech, types of sentences, etc…?

Yes, I will teach the mini-lessons on the floor. I will let some of them sit in chairs instead of on the floor (those that they don’t want to sit on the floor). Last year most of my 6th graders didn’t care about sitting on the floor-BUT the mini-lessons can’t be long because they do get tired of sitting in one place. Don’t all kids? :)

Yes, to your 2nd question-I plan on spending the 1st few weeks teaching parts of speech, sentence types, punctuation, etc. In fact-I am also going to do that for reading. I will spend the 1st few weeks teaching comprehension strategies through mini-lessons, etc. I am not going to begin my Scott Foresman Reading Street program until the 2nd 6 weeks of school-and then I will not spend a huge part of my day on it-only about 15- 20 minutes each day.

Now if I could just get a plan together for all of this I will be ok!!! My room is almost completely ready(well, not quite but almost). However, my head is not ready. I still have lots of planning and thinking to do!!! What does your plan/schedule look like?

Thank you again for your wonderful site! It has been a life saver for me! You are always so quick to respond! Well, I thought sitting on the floor would be fun, buy my sister-in-law who teaches 5th grade math looked at me like I was nuts! Thanks for your thoughts.

I feel the same way about needed to do planning. I went to school today to work somewhere quiet (I have a two year old and a six month old) on my lesson plans, and ended up changing bulliten boards. I just keep putting off the planning part as long as possible. I have some ideas that seem great, but actually implementing them is difficult.

As I mentioned before I have a 90 minute reading only block. My “plan” is to follow the basal skill sequence for the year but with chapter books instead of the stories in the basal. I am thinking about spending 15-20 minutes on the chapter book and minilesson and then designating the rest of the time to CAFE. In order to squeeze my Social Studies in, I thought about having my read to someone involve the text book. That way I can cover a few social studies concepts and the students can get some practice with expository text. The last 30 minutes everyday will be writing with my homeroom. I’m definitely not ready for school quite yet!

DON’T feel like the lone ranger! I have been working for the last HOUR on my lesson plan template-NOT LESSON PLANS, just the template! :) And I have only accomplished one for whole group-still need to do one for small group!

You sound like me-I’ll go to the school to do one thing and end up doing another! :) Kudos to you for being able to do ANYTHING with a 2 year old and 6 month old! :) I have a 17, 18, and 20 year old-the two oldest are my stepsons who JUST MOVED IN-YIKES!! :) So I have been “trying” to clean out the house, etc, etc, etc, etc!!! All of this right before school starts! LOL

I am about to upload my lesson plan template (which also looks like a schedule in a way) (this is so I don’t forget anything) (being 40 is tough!). :) I want to try and incorporate technology into some lessons, too. So much to do…So little time….

I can’t express how much I have appreciated all of your information. This will be the first year I am teaching reading. I will teach reading, language, spelling and writing. I have approx. Two hours. The problem is that I have to follow S.F. To the letter. We are not allowed to bring anything else in. I would love to do the Daily 5 and Cafe ( I am going to do it the best I can) but we will start with the first story the first we of school and test on the fourth day without fail. I have been a mostly math person and I need input on how to set up this language arts block. When do they practice the language skill? We have a list of comp questions and vocal they have to do. Would you do this during the Daily 5? Help!! Again your site is amazing!

I’m glad you are getting some use out of my blog! :) Last year was my 1st year teaching 6th grade (after 6 years in K)-I only did the Daily 5 a handful of times toward the end of the year. This is what I did last year (and I will go ahead and tell you I did NOT do a good job of teaching writing-I’m going to try and do better this year!!).

1. Spelling workbook page-we did not spend a lot of time on this each day
2. I taught them the English skill and had them reteach it to a partner and then we did the practice workbook page together. They still didn’t retain any of this after the quiz each Friday-that’s why I will be doing a daily grammar practice with them EVERY DAY this year.
3. Read Aloud Chapter Book
4. Reading Story stuff (ugghhh) :) -Monday was always my loooong day to introduce everything. Each week with the Scott Foresman story we would read it or listen to it on a CD and do quickwrites (they would make connections, visualizations, and ask questions-then we would share)
5. Daily 5 and Small Group instruction

I hope this helps you a little-let me know if you have any more questions!!! :)

Shannonjoe I love your website. I checked the site for the information on the armt testing and could not move for over an hour. I strted using The Sister’s Website this year and it has certainly made a difference in the way I have taught skills. I also used Beth Newingham site for certain material. Both art great. site is awesome. I wish you taught third grade. LOL. You have a very creative way of putting things together. I will use some of your ideas and make them fit for third grade. Thanks so much for sharing. By the way, I teach third grade at Gordo Elementary.

Hello! I have a new position this year- I will be teaching 6th grade reading with 6 sections, which means only 50 minutes total with 120 students! I have been a first grade teacher and this is very new and overwhelming.So by the time we spend 5 minutes with getting settled at the beginning of class and 5 getting ready before the bell rings, it leaves me 40 minutes! Like if I do a wonderful high quality read aloud for 15 minutes, half of the class period is over! I could do a Daily 3, but not 5, I am only reading. The students have one teacher for reading (me) and someone else for writing. I dont know how to teach reading without writing! I might do word study anyway….i always make things harder than they need to be….Thanks for your great site, it is giving me a picture of what 6th graders can do, like how many books to require them to read. I really needed it! I appreciate any input from other teachers who teach 6th grade reading in sections.

HI! I am teaching Grade 6 and have trouble incorporating Daily 5 and CAFE together. I only did the CAFE a few times last year because I was concentrating on RESPONSEs and NARRATIVES for the Ministry exams. I have 100 minutes of ELA daily. I keep reading the blog and comments and find it fantastic;however feel overwhelmed about how to organize all of this. Any advice.

GC, I wish I could help you. I struggled with all of this when I taught 6th grade. I ended up changing a lot. I didn’t implement CAFE, and my 6th graders would read independently, then write a short reading response and work with a vocabulary word they chose from their book. I’m sorry I can’t help you more. I now teach 1st grade and guess what? I’m struggling to fit everything in. :)

About Me

I teach 6th grade reading/language arts, and we currently use the Scott Foresman Reading Street series. Teaching is my passion!!! I am hoping to create lots of resources that can be used to supplement this reading series. Please be patient.